Fran Hawthorne
11/01/2007
In Cambridge, Mass., Sirtris Pharmaceuticals has concentrated and reformulated resveratrol, a substance found in red wine thought to slow the aging process, into a once-a-day oral prescription pill, according to its chief executive, physician Christoph Westphal. The drug has finished its first round of safety testing, and data from a second round might be available at year’s end. Because FDA regulators do not consider aging a disease, they wouldn’t approve a pill that simply tried to help people extend their life span or stay youthful. Instead, companies have to find a real age-related disease for their drugs to work on. Sirtris currently tests its pill on diabetics and people with a rare metabolic disorder. Because of FDA rules speeding up the review process for drugs for rare conditions, the calorie-restriction version for the metabolic disorder could be approved by 2012.
Meanwhile, venture capitalist Peter Thiel is financing research into telomeres, which are like tiny caps at the end of chromosomes. They get a little shorter every time a cell divides until they become too short; the cells cannot divide and replenish themselves, and they become old and die. Separately, this year New York City–based Telomerase Activation Sciences started selling a pill, derived from the Chinese herb astragalus, which it claims activates an enzyme that stops the shortening. One caveat: Because the product is herb-based, the FDA doesn’t regulate it. So far only 36 men have taken it in trials; the company claims their eyesight, sexual function, skin suppleness, immune systems and sense of well-being all improved. A one-year treatment costs about the same as a typical hormonal regimen: $25,000.
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